Nasrin Sotoudeh is an Iranian human rights lawyer who has been held in Evin prison since Sept. 4. She is being tried behind closed doors on charges of distributing anti-state propaganda and conspiracy to commit crimes against national security. She was initially placed in solitary confinement and deprived of all visits, and she has since gone on two hunger strikes to protest her treatment.
Sotoudeh is a colleague of attorney and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi and has defended her in numerous cases. She has also represented human rights activists, juveniles on capital charges, and abused children. Her case is one of a number of recent attacks on human rights lawyers by the Iranian regime. Others include Mohammad Oliyaeifar, a lawyer who is also one of Sotoudeh’s clients, and Mohammad Seifzadeh, co-founder of the Defenders of Human Rights with Ebadi, who has been sentenced to nine years in prison with a 10-year ban on practicing law after his release. In recent weeks, five human rights lawyers were arbitrarily arrested, three of whom remain in prison. Although the Iranian regime denies that it holds political prisoners, human rights groups have been able to identify at least 800 to date.
